And this is a collection of short stories
that means a lot to me but, I have to recognize, probably will mean nothing to
most non-Italian readers (save maybe a few people from Southern France whose
experiences and family histories may have been rather similar).
But, refusing to leave my bias aside, I think
that Fenoglio might have been the best Italian writer of the 20th
century (surely Il Partigiano Johnny and Una Questione Privata
deserve to be considered among the 50 most significant Italian books published
over the last 100 years). True, his characters smoke a lot and might have
values that are at times anachronistic and at times awfully politically
incorrect by today’s standard, but Fenoglio manages to bring to life the common
wisdom of the peasantry and their daily problems like no other author, and the
short stories of Un Giorno di Fuoco (many of which have nothing to do
with Resistance and anti-fascism) are no exceptions.
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